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Sunday, February 25, 2018

I'm sure you've noticed that I haven't posted on here in a while. It was about a month ago where I hit my limit. I have been frustrated for YEARS that this blog isn't what I had intended it to be. I kept telling myself every few months that it would change, that things would get better, but life always got in the way.

Last month I noticed that a girl I went to high school with, with a blog that hadn't been active in months, and only had posts every few months, had more followers than mine. And that was the moment I quit.

In the back of my mind since starting this blog, my thoughts were always "get more followers" and I acted on social media and on this blog in a manner to do so, but to no avail. I would plan everything, every move, and I felt so limited and boxed it. I didn't even notice it though.

The moment I told myself "I'm done blogging" it felt like a huge weight had lifted. I started to enjoy Instagram in a way I never had. I wasn't posting to please others, I was posting because it made me happy. I didn't feel pressured to do a photo shoot, then upset it didn't turn out as I wanted.

To say this blog is entirely done, is probably false. I will very likely come back. But right now I'm enjoying this freedom I hadn't realized I had taken from myself.

I've focused more recently on my Instagram. My personal (@_cowgirlkaylee_) I just try to post semi- beautiful photos to document my life. I have a "fitness blog" (@kayleeshealthylife) account that motivates me to reach my health and fitness goals. And I have a third account (@zoeyandmakell) where I post daily photos of my twin girls (it's by far the cutest and my favorite of the three).

I've also been working on family vlogs to document events in my children's lives. Its been lots of fun and while I never expect my little family vlogs to amount to much, they're something I'll be able to look back on for the rest of my life.

Everything I do now is for myself and my family, which makes it SO much better.

I hope you understand my reasoning behind this. I feel better, and, no offense to anyone who may be in love with this blog, my personal happiness is the most important to me.

This may not be the end. Most likely a break. But I don't know how long and I have no current plans to continue.

Follow me on social media to keep up with my life!!!! I would give you links, but I'm doing this on my phone and I'm literally too lazy to figure out how. There are links at the top of this page, find me there.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

There have been many moments in my life where I believed all was lost and I would never repair myself. I wanted life to end. I wanted to escape from the pain, reality, and difficulty of it all. Life didn't feel fair.

Life is never fair though.

It's not meant to be fair. No one can have a perfect life and no one can have the exact same life. It wouldn't make sense, it wouldn't be real. No one would progress and change, no one would feel.

I think the biggest reality of the unfairness of this world is death.

I remember when my aunt died of cancer. I remember how I didn't take it well. Even if she lived in California and I saw her maybe once a year, having to watch such an incredible, kind, brave woman battle cancer and die from it was so hard on me.

I didn't know how to cope.

I was asked to sing at the funeral and I remember struggling to get through it, my emotions and tears taking over my voice. My uncle still loved it, he told me so, but I remember being ashamed, feeling that I had ruined a beautiful moment.

I was lost at the time.

I grew up in the LDS church and we are taught that there is an afterlife. That we are sealed to our families for eternity. That we will see our family members again after we die.

We never truly lose someone.

But when my aunt died, my heart was lost and I didn't believe it. I didn't believe that I would see her again. And it felt so unfair that this amazing woman was just gone.

There was a moment in my life that changed me.

I had been broken for a long time. I had been viciously cutting and burning myself. And one night in college I ran away and I found myself on the steps of an LDS church building in the middle of the night.

And I prayed.

And I didn't feel anything after. There was no light from heaven, there was no prompting, there was no comfort. My pain didn't disappear it didn't diminish. In that moment, nothing changed.

I didn't know it at the time, but my entire life would shift from that moment on.

It was slow and gradual, but my heart began finding the light again. And I believe with every part of me, that it was not a coincidence that only a week later I would meet the man who would later become my husband, and who I believe is my soulmate.

God is good.

He teaches us when and how we need to be taught. He has a path and a plan for our lives. It's never easy or fair or what we want. He knows what's best.

I know I am sealed to my family for eternity.

My family means the world to me. My parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, husband, and my beautiful baby girls. I know we are all part of a bigger plan. I will see my aunt again. I will see my grandpa again. And I will see my angel baby again.

The world lost a great man.

President Thomas S. Monson passed away. He was a prophet of God. He inspired me. He spoke, and I couldn't help but listen. He would tell me to do something and I wanted to go and do it. I think, more than any apostle in the LDS church, he was the one that helped me find myself when I was lost.

He is not gone, though.

He is now reunited with his sweet wife. And his words have resonated in the hearts of many people and will live on for eternity. And while he may not dwell on earth anymore, he will always live in our hearts and in our memory.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Hello friends! It's a new year and I always get so excited, hyping up the new year and hoping it'll be better than the last. The past few years have been hard, but 2017 overall was good. I got pregnant after three years of trying and a miscarriage, and I was so blessed to have my beautiful twins, who I'm just obsessed with. Yes, I spent most the year pregnant and miserable, and the medical bills have been an adventure, but 2017 was the best year I've had in a while. So good job 2017!

Last year I made tons of goals/resolutions for the year (which I'll talk about a little later on in this post). My whole reasoning was that with tons of goals, I would at least accomplish some of them. I didn't care about getting everything done on my list... I think part of me knew I would get pregnant and most my life plans/goals would change.

This year, I'm doing the complete opposite. Because I only have one goal. So if I don't accomplish it then it'll be really sad. Now, even though it's technically one goal, it has a few parts to it, so let's go over my goal for 2018.

TO WRITE

That's it. Very simple, straightforward, not complicated at all. But honestly, it will (hopefully) be the most impactful goal of my entire life.

I have said on this blog so many times that I want to be a book author. But have you seen any books of mine yet? Nope. Because I don't write enough. I was ten when I first knew I wanted to write. TEN! I'm now twenty-seven. That's seventeen years of wasted time! Honestly, I'm sick of being upset with myself, so we're doing this!!

As I said there are a few parts to it, so let's go over that.

First is possibly the obvious one, to write my books and finish a book. I have way too many story ideas written down and I just need to finish one. And yes, I would love to get published as soon as possible, but that's not going to be my goal until I complete a book.

The second is working on Heroes & Villains as well as a few other short story ideas I'm workshopping (which is the beginning of a whole other blog I'm thinking of, but that's another story for another day). I love Heroes & Villains but I don't work on it enough because I just want my readers to be caught up to where I am. I'm skipping ahead to the end, but forgetting to work on the foundation first. I've already been working on this quite a bit and you can expect the next collection of stories to start arriving very soon.

Lastly is writing on this blog. Every year I say I'm going to write more but then I never do. But I'm really thinking this will be my year. Why? Because I'm a stay-at-home mom who now has so much more time to work on blogging! I also have a friend who's going to help out with taking photos and that maybe someday I can convince to be my assistant because she's ridiculously organized and amazing at life. She's also my BFFL so working with her is like the ultimate dream job.

So, yeah, my goal this year is to write and that's it. But I'm really happy about it. I've never loved a goal more in my life nor have I ever been more motivated to reach a goal (except maybe last year with my whole pregnancy goal).

Here's just a recap of all my goals from last year and a look at what I was able to accomplish:

MY 2018 GOALS & RESOLUTIONS

HEALTH

SPIRITUAL

BLOGGING

Yes

-Eat healthier

Yes

-Pray daily

No

-Find my style

Yes

-Get to sleep/rise early

No

-Read the Book of Mormon

No

-Work on the Chris & Kaylee Show

No

-Workout 4x per week

No

-Visit the temple monthly

Yes

-Find my voice

No

-Run a 5k

Maybe

-Become more Christlike

Yes

-Be myself

No

-Lose fat, gain muscle

No

-Give service daily

No

-Become a #BossBabe

Yes

-Dance

No

-Have family home evening

No

-Blog at least 2x per week

HOME LIFE

FINANCIAL

No

-Get 2 blog sponsors

No

-Cook more

No

-Pay all bills on time

Yes

-Learn how to make money blogging

Yes

-Move into an apartment

No

-Save up money for a trip

Ish

-Start vlogging

No

-Clean home daily

No

-Become financially stable

No

-Take video editing course

No

-Craft more

FUN

No

-Be more active on social media

No

-Sew four projects

No

-Find 1 new city event a month

Yes

-Work on photography skills

No

-Grow a plant

No

-Explore everywhere

WRITING

PERSONAL

No

-Visit museums

No

-Weekly writing prompts

Yes

-Think positively

No

-Sing more

Yes

-Find my voice

Yes

-Be a warrior

Yes

-Dance more

No

-Learn more

Yes

-Be a better wife

No

-Plan a trip

No

-Go to a writing conference

Yes

-Love more

No

-Take a writing course

Yes

-Work with passion

No

-Publish a short story on Amazon

Yes

-Find my voice

Yes

-Write 30 minutes a day

No

-Tell my story

No

-Read more

Yes

-Be myself

Yes

-Become pregnant/learn what my body needs to have a baby

So yeah... didn't do great. But as I mentioned, getting pregnant changed a lot of things. Especially when I found out it was twins. Small tangent here, I had every intention to keep working after having my baby until I learned it was twins. Because affording any sort of childcare for twins would be impossible. Though affording to live on one income is difficult as well, but we are picking our battles here.

Of course, just because I didn't reach those goals last year doesn't mean I'm completely giving up on them. Some of them are lifelong goals so I'll be continuing on with them in mind.

Last note, I always pick a theme song for the year and this year was just super difficult because there are so many that I thought of. So I made a whole playlist of them which you can listen to below. Basically, this year is about getting work done (which is ironic since I'm technically unemployed) and these are all songs that motivate me. But I did end up choosing one main one and you can read about it HERE.

Well, I think that's it for this post. Let me know your goals for the new year in the comment section below! Thanks, you're a hero!

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Hello my lovely friends! I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday season and are as excited for the New Year as I am.

Today I am supposed to talk about my theme song for 2018. As you may know, every year I pick out a theme song for the year. I've been doing this since I graduated high school and it's something that means a lot to me because music is such an important and special influence in my life.

Usually, I have thought about my song choice extensively for months and have the song picked out by November (because the past few years everytime November hits I'm ready for the New Year). This year was the hardest to pick out a song. In fact, I'm not even 100% behind my song choice. I blame the past few months of learning to be a mom and to be unemployed. My life is SO different than it's ever been and I think it's hard to adjust to that. My usual habits and tendencies are hard to go back to considering I'm suddenly a stay-at-home mom of two.

While I did end up choosing a specific song for 2018, I made an entire playlist of songs to help motivate me through the year. I'll go over it below and my reasoning behind them.

Overall, I wanted a song that would motivate me to do something outside my normal comfort zone. If you aren't a regular blog reader of mine, I have depression and social anxiety and can be an all over emotional wreck a lot of the time. I tend to stay in my private little box, too afraid to take risks and go after my dreams for fear of failing. This year I want to get outside that box and change my life.

A few weeks ago I finally was inspired by a song that came on over my Spotify. As I mentioned, I'm not completely obsessed with my theme song as I usually am, but that's why I have a whole playlist.

There are so many lyrics in this song that just speak to me, so it's difficult to go over which ones I want for 2018 without quoting the whole song. But I think more than anything, I love the actual title of the song. I LIVED.

When I was seventeen years old I was suicidal and made a few attempts at ending my life. I had no idea as a teenager that my life would end up like this: married to my soulmate with a cute dog and the most adorable baby girls. I don't believe seventeen-year-olds make the smartest decision, but by far the greatest decision of my entire life was to not end it.

I survived my teenage years. I survived college and the struggles I went through there. I survived cutting myself, sexual assault, and a miscarriage and have ended up today in the best place I think my life has ever been in. I survived so much pain and I hope to continue to fight through every struggle that is thrown at me.

However, no matter how grateful I am for my life so far, I feel as if I've merely been surviving each day. I want to live each day. I want to wake up every morning with an excitement for each day and the possibilities it could bring. I want to end this year quoting the song: "I owned every second that this world could give."

I want to plan adventures for not just myself, but for my husband and my daughters. I want us to make memories to last a lifetime. But I think more than anything, I want to build an excitement for life in my daughters that I never had. I know they're young, they won't remember this year, but I want to get into the habit of giving my children opportunities and excitement.

2018 is about living life to the fullest and I'm excited for this year and creating the best year ever.

Now real fast I'm going to go over my playlist. I subtitled this as my "Power Playlist" because it's all songs that motivate me to get up and do something. These are great workout song, hype songs, and dancing song. This playlist is great for so many things and I am already so obsessed with listening to it all the time. I'm sure I'll continue to add new songs throughout the year because this is my "Power Playlist" and if I find a new song that empowers me, it belongs.

Quick note, the first part is all females because originally that's what I wanted: female empowerment. But honestly, no power playlist is complete without "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse, so I broke the original rules, but I'm so happy with this playlist I wouldn't have it any other way.

Do you pick out a theme song for the year? Let me know yours in the comments below!!